A 16-year-old junior at Boulder High School is spearheading an effort to change the name of the school to Barack Obama High School in honor of the new president.

Ben Raderstorf, who was the youth volunteer coordinator for Democrat Will Shafroth’s bid to win the 2nd Congressional District seat, will hold a news conference today announcing his hope that the school will be renamed.

“We think the election of Barack Obama is one of the most significant events in our country and shows the progress we’ve made in this country,” Raderstorf said Wednesday between classes. “We think he is deserving of recognition like this.”

Raderstorf is president of the Student Worker Club, the 12-member group behind the attempted change.

But while Boulder Valley School District spokesman Briggs Gamblin said the district, in “the spirit of civic engagement,” is ready to consider the proposed name change, the group will have a high hurdle to clear.

Under district regulations, Gamblin said, the renaming of a school can be considered only when district restructuring creates a new school or in what the board of education deems to be “extraordinary circumstances.”

“Advocates for the name change would be required to convince a majority of the seven-member elected school board that ‘extraordinary circumstances’ . . . exist,” Gamblin said.

Laurie Albright, a member of the school board, said she is excited when she sees students become actively engaged in the schools and the community.

“If they are willing to go through the process — the whole process — I will look at it with an open mind,” Albright said. “I like students to think about issues and to think what can be done to make the schools and the community stronger.”

Helayne Jones, the school board president, said that she thinks the initiative reflects the type of active participation in the process she likes to see from students.

“I think they view themselves as responsible citizens,” Jones said. “My reaction is that the students are active citizens in a democracy.

“I’m sure there would be a lot of opinions about this,” Jones said with a laugh.

Raderstorf notes there are schools nationally named after several presidents, including Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, Clinton and Bush, and he feels a school named for Obama would be appropriate.

“He is as much of a president as any of them,” Raderstorf said.

The Student Worker Club garnered considerable heat a couple of years ago when it boycotted the Pledge of Allegiance, particularly the phrase “one nation under God.”

But Raderstorf said the Student Worker Club has changed considerably since then.

“We’ve reinvented ourselves,” he said. “We want to build up the school.”

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